Down To Earth

Editorial. Sunita Narain.
VII.VII.XV

Food for nutrition,
natureand

livelihood

By Sunita
Narain

What
societies eat reflects their position on the
modernity trajectory. Poorer countries have health
problems because of lack of food. Then as people
get rich, they end up losing the health advantage
of food availability. They eat processed food that
is high in salt, sugar and fat, which make them
obese and ill. It is only when societies get very
rich that they rediscover the benefits of eating
real food and value
sustainability.

In India, ironically, it
is happening all at once. We have a huge challenge
of malnourishment and now a growing battle with
the bulge and its associated diseases, diabetes
and hypertension. But we also have an advantage:
we still have not lost our culture of real food.
The nutrition, nature and livelihood connection
still exists as Indians eat local, nutritious,
home-cooked meals, which are more than often
frugal. But this is because we are poor. The
question is whether we can continue to eat healthy
meals sourced from bio-diverse nature and built on
rich culinary cultures even as we get rich. This
is the real test.

But to do this, we must
get food practices right. We must understand that
it is not necessary or accidental that the richer
societies tend to lose the health advantage
because of bad food. It is because of the food
industry, and it is because governments have
stopped regulating in favour of nutrition and
nature. Quite simply, they have allowed powerful
industry to take over the most essential of our
life businesses—eating.

We also need to
understand that eating bad is about changing
practices of agriculture, so that business becomes
integrated and industrial. This model is built on
supplying cheap food, with high resource and
chemical inputs.

For the past few years,
the Centre for Science and Environment
(CSE)—where I work—has tested
pesticides in bottled water and then colas, then
trans-fat in edible oil, antibiotics in honey and
most recently, antibiotic residue in chicken.
These tests have shaken consumers, and the Indian
government has acted. It has brought in more
stringent standards for pesticide residues in
these foods, improved regulation of pesticide
surveillance; agreed (reluctantly) to regulate
trans-fat, adopted near-zero antibiotic standard
for honey and, most recently, banned the use of
antibiotics as growth promoters in poultry. But
all this is not enough.

We need a model of
agricultural growth that will value local good
food production and not have to first
“chemicalise” and then learn better.
This is difficult. But this is what needs to be
done so that we can have both nutrition and
livelihood security. As yet, the food safety
business is designed to focus on hygiene and
standards. But regulation needs food inspectors,
so the cost of surveillance increases. Ironically,
in this model, what goes out of business is what
is best for our body and health: small farmers and
local food business. What survives is what we do
not need: large agribusiness.

Simultaneously, we need
to protect against bad food. Governments cannot
say that eating processed food is about choice.
Governments cannot stand by and watch as industry
uses millions of dollars to cajole, persuade and
seduce consumers to eat what they know is junk and
unhealthy.

The first is to ban or
at least severely restrict the availability of
ultra-processed food—high in salt, sugar and
fat—in schools. Secondly, people need to be
informed about what they are eating. To do this,
labelling on food should specify how much fat,
sugar or salt it contained in relation to our
daily diet. Thirdly, governments need to regulate
the promotion and advertising of unhealthy junk
food. Most importantly, celebrity
endorsement—from cricket to film
icons—should not be allowed. But this is
easier said than done. The industrialising world
is the favoured destination for this business and
it is our turn to be turned into food
zombies.

The way ahead then is
all of the above and more. In India, we also need
to celebrate our rich food cuisine, which is built
on the incredible array of colours, flavours,
spices and diversity of nature. We need to know
that if biodiversity disappears in the wild, we
will lose the food wealth on our plates. Food will
become impersonal. It will become a sterile
package designed for universal size and taste.
This is what is happening today, where we eat
plastic food from plastic cans.

The CSE’s recipe
book First Food rejoices in the connection between
what we eat and why we eat it. If we lose the
knowledge and culture of our local cuisines, then
we lose more than their taste and smell. We lose
life. We lose our tomorrow.